While I worked on several paintings alternately today, I wanted to exercise my artistic muscles with a loose rendering of this miner’s shack. This is referenced from a photo that I took of an old miner’s camp called Carson Camp in Sierra Co. My husband and I took a trip to the high country last summer to scout out the area, he wanted to show me where he worked as a miner in a hard rock gold mine. Close by is the Ruby Mine where he worked back in the 1980’s. It was amazing to have him show me around and to explain the various buildings and equipment. My photo here is close enough to my painting though the Burnt Sienna used didn’t seem to stand out as it should.
I am thinking of perhaps either crisping this up a tad or starting another one. I wasn’t concerned with details as I was going for feeling. I had to catch myself when I wanted to render too much. I would like to abstract the building a bit more and to know what to showcase and leave the rendering to that area.
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This really appeals – I love ramshackle old cabins and wooden buildings, and your detail here seems just right. (I’d want this shack as a fixer-upper, but not too fixed up!)
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Exactly! too rendered is boring and I have it just on that edge of boring. Next time I am going to go more loose and dramatic.
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love the wood tones on the shack !
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These colors are yummy. did you use burnt sienna and ultramarine blue or Prussian? And is that quinacridrone gold or raw sienna in there?
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I used Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue and Raw Sienna. I think that I would have used more of the BS than the Raw Sienna next time.
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They were nice combinations for the weathered wood.
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No crisping up needed here Margaret. Great painting!
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thank you!
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Nice!! I really love seeing through it to the window on the other side. Such a wonderful sense of depth you created. (Of course my head is brimming with stories now! hehe). Love it!! 😍
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Thank you Charlie! You should take a look at my album on Facebook, I have more photos and I wrote quite a bit about our little journey. The album is called “Ruby Mine Sunday”.
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Aww cool!! I’ll check it out!! 😃
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The old shack you’ve painted reminds me of a shed I painted (mine was in watercolor too) many years ago — decades ago — in the small town in rural North Carolina where my parents lived in their retirement. That ordinary building was one I passed when we took walks. It was so lovely in the sunlight with a rusted metal roof that was both bright and dull, weathered white boards, dark vacant window with interior shadows that seem to vibrate in the heat of summer, all framed by tall weeds that grew up around the edges and criss-crossed the window frames. Things like that can pull you into their story. I’ve always thought it would be fun to do something like that again, to find the magic in some ordinary structure. I do notice things like that in my walks and travels, but it’s been a long time since I painted motifs of that picturesque sort.
Buildings like that always tell a story. The way the building is built reflects the ideas of its builder.
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I am hoping to paint more of these, very good practice. You are right, they certainly do have stories to tell.
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